By the Blade
by firiette
Summary: You wonder as to the reason he would pick this particular letter, this moment, to do this. A message for Sherlock? Something to do with your last name? His last name? And then you realize. Not a 'W' at all. An upside-down 'M.' Moriarty.


Hello all. I should be working on _Every Sinner's Future_ right now but I was bitten by the _Sherlock_ virus and now I just gotta. Gawd what is my life I don't even gahhhhh.

Sooo. Well, this is narrated from the point of view of me, the author, if this was part of an episode and focused on one particular character and I was watching it. (That made little sense but just go with it.) This takes place after "The Great Game," "A Scandal in Belgravia," and before "The Reichenbach Fall."

I don't own _Sherlock_ or any of its characters.

* * *

"By the Blade"

Your eyes open and the first thing that overwhelms you is the void of black twisting around your face. For a minute, you panic. For a minute you let the anxiety claw at your heart, not bothering to fight down your fast breathing or thundering pulse. Then the minute drags onto two minutes and you calm down and shift in the chair you're sitting in. Your training kicks in. You must get hold of yourself; there are more important things to think about.

You focus on remembering how you ended up this way. You recall walking down the street, carrying some food you bought from the shops in two incredibly slippery, incredibly heavy, plastic bags. It was raining – well, drizzling, really, but it bothered you all the same – and the wetness made walking the few blocks back to your flat that much more tiresome.

Water splashed on the only good shoes you have at your disposal right now and your head swivelled to the side to give whoever or whatever caused it a rather uncharitable look. You paused when you heard a voice. Someone drove up to the curb to talk to you. Why? You didn't know. And then you did know because they were leaning out their window and asking for directions to Piccadilly. They must be tourists, you thought. From out of town. They didn't know their way around. So you slowed down, adjusted your jacket, you took a second from your day to cross the last few feet between you and the car.

Bending your back to be level with the driver, you began to tell them which street they needed to take, not necessarily the fastest way there but a good lot better than having them wander around looking for it. You started to talk, started with the first street, take the first left, and then…

You stopped.

It was a man who stared back at you. His hair was shorn inches from his head, dressed in the finest clothes you've ever seen someone in a Subaru wear. You didn't recognize him at all, and you momentarily wondered why you should, but you saw a type of hostility and desperation in his dark eyes that made you lose your train of thought. Searching automatically for a weapon, your eyes travelled to his left hand where he was holding his mobile. It was a pink phone…a phone you knew – you _knew_ – he shouldn't have…couldn't have…

Oh but you were distracted from him. What was that movement behind you? And what on earth was grabbing…your…arm…

There is nothing after that. Nothing except darkness, just as there's darkness now. This is different darkness, though, because you're awake. You wonder: are you blind? No, not blind. There is still light filtering through, though admittedly not much. After a while it hits you, possibly far slower than it should have, that you're wearing a black bag over your head.

You aren't blind. You're kidnapped.

Again.

In the other room connecting to where you are, a lean, tall figure – not extremely tall but taller than you – moves through the doorway, his black shoes echoing in the empty space. His hands are shoved into the pockets of his long deep grey coat and his chin is locked determinedly underneath his navy blue scarf, his eyes alert and thoughtful as he scans his surroundings.

"Luring me here with the possibility of a new game? You knew I wouldn't be able to resist," he calls out to the emptiness as he twirls, looking around. "What's the game this time, Moriarty? Russian roulette? Or how about a good ol' round of checkers? I'll play fair. Promise."

No one answers him; he expects that. He walks lengthily to the far wall where your door is bolted shut, where you are only five feet from him. He doesn't know this. It is simply a locked door to him. He expects you to be back at your flat, not here. Safe, sound, eating properly at the kitchen table, and not here.

You don't hear or see any of this shut inside the black prison of your mask. You're oblivious to the world around you, trapped in the suffocating darkness that closes off your throat and dries your lips. The dark itself is not that bad – you suppose you might like it if you were staring up at the night sky or watching the curling waters of the sea. Here, though, it is consuming you until the darkness of your eyelids and the darkness of the bag are inseparable. True, there are beads of light, but they look more like stars than anything else. Ironically they give about as much light as their astral look-alikes.

Suddenly you hear breathing directly behind you, the shifting of cloth. Your head turns to the sound while your heart leaps in your chest, your mind scrambling to calculate how long someone could possibly have stood there without your notice. The man who asked for directions on that curb is standing in the shadows, his intense gaze fixed on the back of your neck; you can feel it. There is a swift metallic clicking noise and the creak of the door startles you. You jolt in your seat, perhaps for the first time noticing that your arms are bound to the arms of a wooden chair, and your ears are assaulted by the clear stomps of a familiar shoe.

"Hello, detective," the man says, his voice sounding odd to you. Rehearsed. He's so close to your ear that you almost think he's speaking to you. You have enough common sense to know that he is not. There is also enough to figure out there must be someone else in the room other than you.

That other person speaks and you know who it is.

"I don't know you. Do I?" You can picture his eyes narrowing for only a moment. A moment is all it takes for him to log the unknown man through any newspaper, telly news or picture on the internet he's seen. "No, I don't. You're far too tall." A moment of silence goes by and then his gloved hands clap together with as much excitement as a child on Christmas morning. "Ah! Moriarty, Moriarty, Moriarty! Of course. Back to where we began."

A soft undertone of Stayin' Alive resonates off the walls and to the tune the man pulls out his mobile phone from his jacket pocket. "This man is reading my texts," he says. "I call him Williams. He's not as endearing as your pet, but mine's bigger."

You pull at the ropes around your wrists and ankles, yearning to choke Moriarty, even just a little, like you had tried that horrible night beside the pool, where Sherlock Holmes had begun all those years ago. But this man is not Moriarty. Lashing out at him would be pointless as well as impossible considering your situation. You pull again, only this time for much less longer, a failing attempt more out of frustration than anything.

"Williams, hm? Not your real name, I assume. Of course not. Everything about you is practically unidentifiable. Your hair has been recently cut – I can see your hairline is whiter than the skin on your face. Obvious signs of a new change in hairstyle or haircut. No watch, no jewellery, and no tan lines to suggest you ever wear any. And your clothes are immaculate, so clearly they're new. Though, not from any store I've seen, so perhaps they were acquired out of country or handmade. If that were the case, then the tailor would have to be a professional. You're also an American."

"How –"

"Oh, please. No British man I know talks the way you do. Your accent is good – _too _good. You were flown here; quite discretely, I'm guessing. This means payoffs, a fake identity, as well as a tidy sum, and since you wear no other finery besides your shoes, – again brand new – you obviously have my 'friend' to thank for these little presents. Moriarty has disguised you nicely. And all for me. I feel flattered."

The ringtone of the phone sounds off metallically. If you could see through the mask, you would see Williams again sliding his phone from his jacket pocket. You would see his eyes flicking over the words of the text, see them narrowing in anticipation. But you're blind to the world, the only sound is Williams' shoes clicking beside you, the only feelings in the air are anger, confusion, and fear.

Before you can breathe, before you can blink, Williams presses a gun's barrel to your thigh and pulls the trigger. Searing white anguish streaks through your leg and your vision clouds but you don't lose consciousness. You are not granted that escape. Your eyes wide, ever-seeing, you stare at the black fabric covering your face. The practical side of yourself blankly notes that the bullet has passed straight through, which will be better in the long run, while the other side, the human one, whimpers in pain.

Another voice pries into your foggy brain, forcing you to listen. "This seems incredibly tedious. Murdering random citizens again? Talking through a phone? My, how unlike you to follow the same pattern twice. And here I was assuming you were original." His voice lowers, as if conspiratorially, so quietly you suspect he's leaning forward. "Tell me, Williams, do you have a bomb strapped to you as well?"

"For a boring inspector, you seem to be even more incredibly boring today," Williams reads quietly. Then his hand rests heavily on your shoulder, like a weight that makes you tense underneath it. "He's no one. Just a pet going out to buy some milk. I'm surprised you let him off his leash."

The hand then moves to rest on your head and you feel his fingers tighten in the black fabric, scraping your scalp, pulling your hair, as the darkness is finally torn away.

For the longest while you're not sure what you're looking at. The flat is, as far as you can tell, square and alarmingly large, which is strange considering the dilapidated building you're obviously inside. Condensation dribbles down from cracks in the barely-papered walls. The floor is damp, too, with what you can only hope is rainwater. It's dark enough that everything beyond five feet away is in shadows but there is a small circular window cut into the wall on the stooped roof above your head. For the first time in a day you see sunlight.

Your eyes twitch and spasm with the sharp golden glow spilling over your lids and you blink the light back as quickly as possible. Four or five times your lids flicker shut, but before there is a sixth, your gaze catches something – somebody – and you find it impossible to look away. Black, curly hair over white skin, barely touching impossibly blue eyes. Each angle is thin, sharp, cat-like. You have seen this face every day for a year; you would remember it no matter the injury or bright light clouding your brain.

And, of course, you do remember it.

"John." Sherlock's eyes widen in seldom-seen shock, his pale skin growing a subtle shade paler. "Are you…?"

"I'm all right, Sherlock," you discover yourself saying even though you know full well that it's a lie. There is something disgustingly wet seeping down your leg, splashing to the ground. There is no mistaking the iron smell sitting heavily around you. You're losing blood and you're far from all right.

"I'm all right, Sherlock," Williams mimics you cruelly, falling fast into a phony, harsh laugh that is written across his mobile screen. "Come, come. I'm getting bored again. I want information."

Sherlock digs his hands further into his pockets. "I can tell you something you don't know? My, I feel exceptionally honoured!"

"Irene Adler," Williams says abruptly. If this takes Sherlock by surprise, you can't possibly tell. You never could tell what he hid behind those blue eyes. His right eyebrow tweaks slightly, his nostrils flare for a second, and it quickly smoothes faster than it appeared.

"Gone," you speak up and you can't quite ignore the slight shimmer in your voice. You clear your throat to get rid of it, only halfway succeeding. "Gone. She's in, uh, America, somewhere."

A flash of light to your right grounds your attention as your captive whispers against your ear, "I know that's not true."

You don't know how it gets there or where it comes from, but a knife is in his hand and slicing the buttons open down your shirt to your belt in one swift motion. You gasp when the cool blade glides over bone and flesh, proving your mortality, your vulnerability. Something trickles past your ribs, filling your nose with more irony, tangy smells. That is when the pressure increases, when it…

Oh God.

It is pain so much worse than the bullet through your leg, that much worse because it's agonizingly slow as it bites into your flesh and the bullet had been so fast. So, so fast. The knife drags hot across your skin, blood beading in rivers down your chest and pooling at your belt. That is when you're oddly reminded of all the people you have ever operated on and your brain, hazy with torture, wonders if this is what they had felt. The ones you shot. The ones you killed because it was right by the standards of someone else.

"Irene Adler," Williams repeats, sounding so very far away to you. Hazy. "Tell me."

You try to open your mouth to refuse, to tell him what exactly he can do with that phone, only to find your tongue is numb in your mouth. As you fight to speak, Sherlock is talking before you. "No," he says without so much as batting an eye.

Out of the corner of your eye, you catch the glint of his knife coming back to you. You need to scream. You need to cry out to somehow relieve the pain burning your chest. You need it or you'll burst, you'll break, but you don't break. But you want to. Maybe if you break, if you do burst into one million pieces, this will finally be over. You know, though, that if you do, no pain will measure up to the guilt Sherlock will feel. It will destroy him.

You know him well enough that you realize he feels guilt. He feels sadness, pain, just as deeply as anyone. Perhaps deeper, sometimes. You could feel it resonating off him when the old woman died because of Moriarty's game. You blamed him, accused him in your own way of having no heart, saying that he didn't care. You could never have been so wrong.

So you don't scream.

Williams brings the knife down to your skin once more. "Tell me!"

"No!" Sherlock barks back, his voice sounding oddly calm to you. If you were in his place, you would be nervous, frightened what they could do to him. True, he cares, but you realize Sherlock's not like that. You realized that a long time ago – maybe when you saw him at odds with the serial killer with a pill to his mouth that could save him as well as sentence his death. You knew then that he would do anything for that high. And you know he wouldn't choose you over Irene Adler.

It is over in a minute. Or perhaps a few seconds – you can't tell. It's felt like years longer. You roll your head back as Williams steps away from you, scrubbing his knife against his pants. He has carved something into your chest. You can feel it, much like the bullet hole, that it doesn't belong there. What it is, you're not certain, and you dare to look down at the bloody mess he has made of your own body.

Beneath the blood and beneath the puckering, torn flesh, you squint to see a shape crudely formed just below the stoop of your collar bone, larger than the width of your entire hand. It's very size brings about some morbid curiosity at the same time that it multiplies bile in your throat. Four long slashes have created a strange outline and after a moment you know what it is. It looks like a 'W,' which it shouldn't be, but it is. You wonder why. You wonder as to the reason he would pick this particular letter, this moment, to do this. A message for Sherlock? Something to do with your last name? His last name?

And then you realize. Not a 'W' at all.

An upside-down 'M.'

Moriarty.

"That was fun," he says, and you find him suddenly annoying. His words are swimming all around you, tipping you off to what will happen next if you don't get hold of yourself. You'll faint, which is silly if you think about it. You have seen blood. You've killed. You operated. Experienced pain, even. But this…this is torture. Torture tends to make people come undone. And it's making _you_ come undone. "Let's try this again. This is the game, Sherlock: tell me where Irene Adler is or _my_ friend will shoot _your_ friend until I have what I want or he's dead. Well, either way I'll get what I want."

"And if I've already contacted the police?"

"You haven't."

"They're surrounding the building."

"No they aren't."

Sherlock frowns and shrugs. "I had to try." He observes the cracked ceiling above him, maybe looking for a camera or wires leading to a camera outside. "Tell me. What is this really about, Moriarty?"

The phone rings and Williams has it in his palm in a second, reading it aloud: "Irene Adler."

"Ha. You can't possibly expect me to believe you've brought me here, gone through so many theatrics, to locate one woman." He shakes his head with a knowing grin. "No, you're smarter than that. You're meticulous. You're…Oh," he breathes. His eyes widen as you watch the pieces slowly falling into place in his head. "Ohhhh. No, no, no, no. You don't want information."

His words make your jaw drop. "What?"

"Remember, John? He likes to watch me dance." He motions between you and himself, stating, "_This_ is the game."

Tied to this chair in the middle of this dreary flat with a gun and a knife both pressed to your back, you begin to question your reason for being here. Why stay with a sociopath? No matter how much of a genius he is, you can't quite bring yourself to admit that the excitement in your life is worth all this trouble.

You think back to yesterday, back to the blinding light of the warehouse above your head, back to the dead body barely a meter away with Sherlock hanging over it, where you were talking with one of the many people who has their opinions on all that you do. Sergeant Donovan swished the coffee around in her mug and you watched her watch the steam coming off the black liquid. Although you aren't as adept as your sleuth flatmate, you could already hear the words forming her lips. Her eyes told you exactly what she was going to say next.

She doesn't like Sherlock; he's too far from anything she can hope to understand. On the other hand, she likes you and that like somehow takes precedence over her dislike. She wanted to warn you. She doesn't trust him. No one trusts him.

"He doesn't appreciate you, John. You're not his friend. You're his assistant, someone to fetch his coffee and run his errands. You do what he wants because he wants it." Sergeant Donovan shook her head. "You're not his friend."

That is what everyone has ever told you. Even you have had doubts. You're nothing to him. You're an assistant. But Sherlock said that you, insignificant, normal, everyday you, were his one friend.

And so you trust in Sherlock Holmes.

Your foot kicks out against the floor to give you some control on your angle. The tip of your still-wet shoe slips on the slick flooring and you roll your eyes angrily at your mistake. It takes you only a second try before the room is tipping around you and you land sideways onto the wooden floor, clacking noisily across the wood in a sound that attacks your ears, the jarring making you groan. Behind you, Williams automatically jumps back in shock, his eyes wide, not expecting this turn of events, not prepared for anything remotely like this. Sherlock, on the other hand, is ready, and he leaps out at Williams with the dexterity of a cat.

While you labour to release yourself from the bindings, your heart hammering in your throat, the two struggle at the back of you. Somebody's leg strikes the arm of the chair and sends you sliding three feet away, screeching across the slippery floor. The chair skims to a halt in the left corner of the room and you moan a little at the motion. Eyes tight shut, you use this as a reason to pull harder at the ropes.

There is a sharp _clack_ noise that stills your movements. You wrench your neck to see the knife screaming by the legs of the chair, knowing full well what's happened. Someone has won the struggle and you hold your breath and wait to find out which it is. A blur of a silhouette bends down by your feet and bolts away in a blink.

Not a minute later, blue eyes are glaring into your dark ones and Sherlock is waving a gun in your face and he's ripping your ropes off the chair's arms. "Hurry! He's running!"

Before you can respond or perhaps offer him some form of reason – that there is no possibility that you can move, let alone chase after anyone – Sherlock is sprinting out of the two rooms in the flat and up the stairs. You understand he wouldn't bother if he didn't think Williams wasn't an important link to Moriarty. Swearing profusely in an undertone, you somehow find yourself taking the steps up to the roof.

Sherlock's footsteps are echoing all around you, making it hard for you to think. Running is murder. Your leg throbs; _everything_ throbs. You bite your lip, trying desperately not to faint, as you take the last flight of stairs to the roof. The pain is becoming increasingly agonizing, working its way up to new levels of unbearable. You are being strong, fighting back the pain, but you know that you're fading. There is little possibility that you'll be able to keep up this pace for much longer.

It's absolute murder so you take a quick breather against the wall before you're chasing up those stairs again as quickly as you can possibly stand.

Just ahead of you Sherlock heaves the exit door open, the red letters blinking astoundingly twice as you too slap the door ajar with the palm of your hand. It clicks shut in your wake. Chilly air smacks your face and encases your body and, shivering, you momentarily cast a glance up at the sky. There's hardly any light now. Clouds are hovering off in the distance and night is only an hour away, casting the entire roof in part-darkness. You can't help but quake a little at the thought of dark.

You, stumbling, follow closely at Sherlock's heels and even come close to smacking into him; he's stopped so abruptly. Across the roof Williams is standing with the knife poised above his head for a strike. He's far away but not enough where you would naively expect it to miss if he chooses to throw it.

Fabric shifts next to your face and you glance sideways, seeing Sherlock's hand ramrod straight with the barrel of the gun pointed directly at Williams' chest. "Drop the knife," he demands slowly. "Or I could shoot you. Really, the latter is much easier for me."

You look at him now – truly look at him – holding the chunk of metal in his palm, seeming so very confidant and so very unsure. He doesn't want you to make him a hero. He's never wanted that. Heroes don't exist. At least not for him. It's already too late, though, because they exist for you and he became one as soon as you saw his first show of brilliance, like a refreshing light in your drab life as an unknown. That is why you know he won't do it. He _can't_ do it. If he does, he will lose a piece of himself. You're the soldier, the one-who-can, so you are prepared to take the loss. You have already lost so much now, one more piece will make no difference to you; not in the long run.

You aren't afraid. Your hand doesn't even shake as you pluck the weapon from Sherlock's grasp, not even when you aim, so carefully, so quickly the accuracy is frightening, and shoot. Williams stumbles. He falls. You have hit the mark perfectly, in the shoulder, to disarm, not kill, but he could bleed to death. You doubt yourself once again. What if you missed? What if you struck a vital area? He will die.

There is a cold that locks onto you, freezing you faster than any winter's chill could. There's exhilaration, too, hidden under that cold. A soldier can become so accustomed to war, to the thrill of it, that they don't know how to go back to when it was normal. You weren't a hero in Afghanistan – you weren't a hero anywhere.

Today you will have to be the hero.

You sway once and fall back against the wall, your legs finally giving out underneath you, the gun still a weight in your grasp. You try to keep them standing, keep yourself together until Lestrade arrives, but it is useless. It's too late. You're already bordering on losing consciousness.

There is mist swimming around your mouth, giving you proof on how truly cold it is, but all you can feel is the numbness that has set in your bones. You grin a little at the ridiculous weakness of your body. It's not as if this is the first time you've been shot or the first time you've killed. Far from it. You know, though, that to protect someone close to you, to protect your friend, you would do the same over again.

Something wet lands on the area just below your left bottom eyelid and you jolt to attention. You must have blacked out for a few minutes because the sky is suddenly darker with hanging grey clouds, your eyes are slowly scraping open, feeling like sandpaper, and Sherlock is across the roof, the pink mobile resting in his glove. At his feet is Williams, his neck slit with the knife he used on you, but all you can see is Sherlock from where you are. He looks down ponderingly at the picture of a woman, obviously pregnant, smiling to the camera, at the words typed across the screen, at the last message received.

_He who lives by the blade – JM_

"Dies by the blade," you hear Sherlock whisper.

Blackmail to make Williams do exactly as Moriarty needed for as long as he needed. A family man has slit his own throat to save his wife. A normal man. Not a hero.

Though, of course, you're unaware of this.

"What?" You're confused. You try to turn a little to see better what he is doing. The hole in your leg prevents any movement. You lean back again, gladly sacrifice your curiosity for comfort. Moving will make you lose blood more quickly, anyway.

"What? Nothing." Sherlock slips the phone into his left coat pocket as he spins around, steadily walking back to you. His coat swings lazily about his long legs in the wind, flicking around his body as he bends down on his haunches to be eyelevel with you. "I've checked the body. No ID. Not surprising. Lestrade will have to run him through the system."

You shift a little, wincing painfully at the sharp ache in your thigh. "Will he find anything?"

"Doubtful." He clasps his hands together and uses his rubber-soled shoes to spring up to his feet. "Oh, what a day!" Sherlock cheers, his face eager and elated in that way that always secretly disturbed you. "Moriarty never disappoints."

You shrug, which again makes you flinch. "Yes, well, I could handle a little disappointment."

Understanding, his blue gaze falls on your injured leg, then shifts to where your fingers are already subconsciously zipping up your jacket to hide one of the parts of evidence that proved today happened. The leather stings the previously burning skin but you figure it's worth it as long as you don't have to see it anymore.

Sherlock seems as eager to look away from you as you've possibly ever seen him. Once you're zipped, he bends back down and slides his scarf from around that thin neck of his. You practically jump away when you startlingly feel his fingers go around your leg. Only the spike of pain up your side and in your chest keeps you in place.

"Wh-what are you –" you stutter, but a second later you're rendered speechless by pulling his look he uses to shut you up.

You stare at him as he tugs the scarf around your leg, ties it together just above the bullet hole. There's something you see in his eyes, something other than excitement, worry, or panic, or any other feeling you have seen on Sherlock's face. This is something you've not seen…something you're too tired and too weak to think about, and, if you admitted it freely, didn't _want_ to think about.

"Right now," you say, "I could go for some crap telly."

His eyes crinkle as his smile pulls up his face. "You always were so mundane, John."

You both laugh at the irony of his statement to your situation. It's a short laugh belted out on top of a dirty rooftop and you realize you're probably sitting in some disgusting oil and the police will be pulling up to the street below and Lestrade will be asking hundreds of questions any moment and Sergeant Donovan will be telling you to take up golf, but it's a laugh shared with him, so none of it really matters.


End file.
